Olbermann has signed a stable of contributors including Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi, Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas, comedian Richard Lewis and filmmakers Michael Moore and Ken Burns. Current is not paying many of them -- at least not in the traditional sense. Moore will be compensated via a donation to charity. Burns declined compensation. Moulitsas, who will appear regularly on Countdown, is receiving what he characterized as a "token amount." "I'm not a big fan of being on television," says Moulitsas. "But there are people I appreciate and so I like to do their shows, and Keith is one of those people."
In recent weeks, Olbermann hired David Sarosi -- who produced the "worst persons" segments on MSNBC -- as executive producer. Senior producers include Leslie Bella-Henry, who produced for Lou Dobbs at CNN; Bob Lilly, who worked with Olbermann at MSNBC; and Aaron Volkman, whom Olbermann poached from MLB Network. "I'm a natural management guy," Olbermann says. "I had forgotten that. And I forgot how much I hate it."
But if some of his contributors are doing this on a shoestring, Olbermann is not. He is drawing a salary of $10 million a year, says a source. (Current TV disputes the figure but adds it does not "disclose confidential, contractual details.") Meanwhile, Olbermann will continue to collect his MSNBC wage for another year and a half. At Current, where he is also chief news officer with an equity stake in the company, he is No. 4 on the corporate ladder behind Gore, Hyatt and CEO Mark Rosenthal, an MTV veteran who was on Current's board before being tapped in 2009 to re-invent the network's programming. Olbermann's equity has the potential to inflate his payday exponentially over the life of his five-year deal. Sources say that Countdown will cost about $15 million a year to produce, and the network is spending another $5 million upfront on marketing. All this for a cable channel that is only in 60 million homes in channel Siberia (versus MSNBC's 95 million with prime positioning). Says Rosenthal, "We will spend the money we need to spend to make Keith into even more of a household name than he already is."
Well I for one am awaiting the debut of this show with bated breath. ESPECIALLY after learning that one of my friends is slated to be a guest on the show during its first couple of episodes.
P.S. Here is an additional Q and A that you all may find very interesting as well.
NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross aired a great interview with Keith yesterday!
ReplyDeleteIt was something to hear Keith talk about Palin, and how his parents were dying when she started the lie of "death panels".
It is worth your time to give a listen.
I'd give a link, but I am not able. Sorry!
OT/ but this is good.
ReplyDeletePravda is calling Palin a Traitor.
http://www.politicususa.com/en/foreign-sarah-palin-traitor
I can't wait for Keith. In my family, Keith is known as my boyfriend. 8 o'clock was always boyfriend date time! lol Seriously.
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot of people who loved watching Countdown. Think about all his various guests he'd have on from time to time.
I'm particularly happy to see Ken Burns. I'm a fan. He brought us "Baseball", "National Parks: America's Best Idea", "The Civil War" - to name a few. Awesome films, just awesome.
Anyway, I'm bugging the hell out of my cable provider to add Current.
Go Keith!
OT but this is pretty funny. A source from Bachmann's campaign says people in Iowa view Sarah Palin as UNSTABLE. Bwahahhaha. Unstable? You think?!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/56480_Page2.html
Keith, you're the man!
ReplyDeleteMarkos Moulitsas was fired by Keith before. He is about as progressive as Sarah herself ... the woman hating, gay bating pig who thinks political commentary is a flame war. If Keith can't do better than him, I wonder what he is really all about.
ReplyDeleteI do note Keith has gathered an all male crew. Too bad.
I will follow Keith to Current in a flash. It's one of the reasons, even though we are cutting back other expenses, we made sure to keep the Time Warner option that allows us to see Current TV. Keith is one of the few voices of truth and, even rarer, on of those few voices who speaks powerfully.
ReplyDeleteWhile we still follow Rachel and often Lawrence and Ed, Keith is an important part of our TV watching schedule. So glad he's going to be back!
Off topic-but have we heard a peep from RAM since her twitter debacle?
ReplyDeleteI really have missed him. He and Rachel were the first ones I would check in with. Catching news live is hard for us because of our schedule - so up early each morning to go on line and see who has done what to whom.
ReplyDeleteEd, Chris and Lawrence are good too, but in smaller doses!! Chris gets really excited, Ed gets a bit crazy out of control sometimes and Lawrence just maintains.
Pat Padrnos
Keith has hired David Shuster to be his primary substitute anchor.
ReplyDeleteLove Keith and David!
Wish Keith all the best, he does a great show.
ReplyDeleteMore off topic on the catfight.
ReplyDeletePolitico:
The view in Iowa is that she’s unstable,” said the aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Getcher popcorn.
More on Palins victimhood at the Seee-of pee.?!
"Paylin posse demands repairations for what that old fart said about her. To be paid in Taco Bell Gift cards.
Paylin also, too, issues fattwa about sayin' mean things about her.
Rumors are they have told the #PD press release to happen 'already'- (strike while the flippin' irony is hot!!)"
Sullivan on the Bachmann campaign and Thatcher's watchers going after Palin.
ReplyDeleteIn the last two days, some leading old-school conservatives - Thatcher's coterie and Rollins' crew have described Palin as "nuts" and "unstable."
Know hope.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2011/06/bachmann-vs-palin.html
Where is RAM?
Who will tweet for her?
Two days before email day- she must act now or be forever known as weak. Fuel the bus and planes. Get your motor runnin'. Head out on the highway...
What a fine man; willing to fight the good fight and easy on the eyes too!
ReplyDeleteI've missed his rants and look forward to hearing more from him and his crew.
"Pravda is calling Palin a Traitor."
ReplyDeleteThe Pravda article was last November. Much more recent, and more biting, was Chris Matthews' assessment of her in the closing segment of Hardball yesterday.
Read the full comment at:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43326759/ns/msnbc_tv-hardball_with_chris_matthews/
MATTHEWS: “Let Me Finish” tonight—“Let Me Finish” tonight with Sarah Palin‘s midnight ride with American history.
I have a theory about this person. I don‘t think she‘s at all interested in American history. If she were, she would know more of it. What she wants is bad news about America.
What excites her isn‘t politics, the debate of one side against the other, Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus conservatives. What she wants, as I said, is bad news about America.
What excites her is not the chance to participate or lead in government. She quit government, dump it really. She had other interests.
No, Palin is out to cause trouble. She wants people to be mad at politicians, mad at government, mad at the people who report on government. She wants unhappiness with politics and government that dominate the airwaves, dominate the conversation, dominate the country‘s mood.
She wants us to think about government the way the early colonists thought about the British back in England. She wants us to arm ourselves that we can fight the red coats. She wants us to live in a state of relentless simmering rebellion—every angry, ever distrustful, ever detesting the people we‘ve elected to run the government, the people who cover the people in government.
She wants us to believe toward the government the way angry middle-aged bikers look at government—as the enemy.
12:09, I saw Chris Matthews doing that piece on her. She reminds me of Tokyo Rose. Think about it. She really does.
ReplyDelete10:55 am Sameold says Keith fired Markos and all male crew.
ReplyDeleteLink please where Keith fired Markos.
All male crew? Really now, because Leslie Bella-Henry is not male.
Is this Rebecca Mansour making the above comment?
Oh...news says Rep. Weiner's wife is pregnant.
ReplyDeleteKeith lost me forever when he compared President Obama to being a Nazi appeaser. That was absolutely, totally uncalled for and I will never forgive him for that. He's a self-righteous blowhard. He did suspend Moulitsas at one time from Countdown for someting or other though the details escape me right now. Glad to see David Schuster getting a chance again, I've always liked him.
ReplyDeleteKeith fired Markos because he faked opinion polls for his book and on his site. This is documented. Knowing what Markos is does not make one a Palinite. And it makes me wonder about Keith hiring known incompetents. In whose interest is this?
ReplyDeleteMarkos was blacklisted from MSNBC by Scarborough and Griffin.
ReplyDeleteMarkos was banned by Phil Griffin because of a Twitter feud he had with Joe Scarborough.
ReplyDeleteMarkos brought up the dead intern in Joe's office and then Joe said Markos was accusing him of murder.
Joe went running to Phil and Phil told people not to book Markos on their show.
Keith is going to be joined by some well known women such as Nicole Lamoureux and Leslie Bella-Henry.
ReplyDeleteHe appears to have a well rounded crew to be working with him and appearing on his new show.
Markos still faked polls. That is a fact.
ReplyDeleteSameold says - blah blah blah
ReplyDeleteThe sky is falling, the sky is falling. If I say this is documented and a fact, then I need to post a link!